The Mormon Prophet | Page 9

couldn't see the vision, and he went away
by himself and sobbed and cried. But Joseph went and put his arm
around him and prayed that his faith might be strengthened, and then he
saw it. So they three have written their testimony in the front of the
book that's being printed."
A storm had now broken upon the house in torrents. The door was shut.
Emma wrapped her child closer in her shawl. Susannah sat sulky and
disconsolate. She had a vague idea that the vengeance of heaven was
overtaking her for merely listening to such heresy. Over against this
was a shadowy doubt whether it might not be true, roused by Emma's
continued persistency.
"Is it any easier to believe that those things happened to folks when the
Bible was written? Don't you believe that God appeared to Moses and
Samuel and told them the very words to write down, and showed them
visions; and isn't He the same God yesterday, to-day, and for ever? It's
just what it says in the Bible shall come about in the latter days. It's

because of the great apostasy of the Church, no one really believing in
Jesus Christ, that a new prophet had to appear--that's Joseph."
"They do believe," Susannah spoke sullenly.
"Well, there's your aunt, Mis' Croom. Now she's as good as there is in
the modern Church, isn't she? She's doing all she can to save her soul.
She can't do it, for she don't believe. Why the Lord, He said that signs
and wonders should follow them that believe. Have they any signs and
wonders up at your place? And He said that believers must forsake all,
houses and lands and all; what have your people forsook? And as to its
being hard to believe about Joseph--you just take the things in the Bible,
Elisha and the bears, for instance, and Paul bringing back Dorcas to life,
and just think how hard they'd be to believe if you heard they happened
yesterday, next door to you. And with God all times and places is the
same. Souls is only saved by believing; the Lord says so, and accepting
the things of faith to come to pass, and being baptized and giving up all
and following; and it's an awful thing to lose one's soul."
At this reiteration of the doctrine of the soul as a thing apart from the
development of reason and character, Susannah rose, ready to cry with
anger. Her aunt's agitation on the subject had left a sore to which the
gentlest touch was pain.
"I don't believe it," she cried. "I don't believe God wants us to do
anything except just good. That's what my father told me. I'm going
home. I don't care how it rains."
Emma did not hear her. Over her pale young face had come the
peculiar expression of alert and loving listening. She had detected the
sound of a footstep which Susannah now heard coming heavily near.
A large man of about twenty-five years of age entered from the bluster
of the storm. As Susannah was trying to push out past him into its fury,
he paused, staring in rough astonishment.
Lucy hung on to her arm. "Stay a bit! Joseph must hold the umbrella
over Miss. Emmar, tell her she can't no wise go alone."

Susannah fled into the driving sheets of rain, but Joseph Smith,
umbrella in hand, followed her.


CHAPTER III.
The umbrella was a very heavy one. Susannah certainly could not have
held it against the wind. Joseph Smith held the shelter between
Susannah and the blast, looking at her occasionally with a kindly
expression in his blue eyes, but merely to see how far it sheltered her.
They walked in silence for about a quarter of a mile. The rain swept
upon her skirt and feet; she saw it falling thick on either side; she saw it
beating upon Smith's shoulder, upon one side of his hat, and dripping
from his light hair. The wind was so strong that the very drops that
trickled from his hair were blown backward. His blue coat was old--not
much protection, she thought, against the storm.
The false prophet had hitherto appeared quite as terrible to her
imagination and as far removed from real life as the wild beast of story
books; now he appeared very much like any other man--rather more
kind in his actions, perhaps, and distrait in his thought. Susannah began
to think herself a discoverer.
"You are not keeping the rain off yourself."
"It don't matter about me. I don't mind getting wet."
His tone carried conviction. After a while gratitude again stirred her
into speech.
"I'm afraid you find it awfully hard holding up the umbrella."
He gave a glance downward at